Friday, April 06, 2012

20th C German Intellectuals Thinking Hard

It is quite a contrast to read the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three, a 1914 document justifying Germany's "Rape of Belgium" and it's behavior leading to WWI in general, and then look at the Barmen Declaration, the 1934 document of the Confessing Church under Adolf Hitler.

Wikipedia: "Signers among the 93 included: Nobel Prize laureates, artists, physicians, physicists, chemists, theologians, philosophers, poets, architects and known college teachers." You will recognise some names, and note that many signatories are in blue type, the Wikipedia signal that they have their own page. Barmen is by Karl Barth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a signatory. Both were rising in fame, but much smaller fish than the august first list.

I have earlier contrasted Barmen with the 1973 Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern.

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